Grass Root Action   :  Awakening For The Rights

People’s rising: Taking development in their hand

Khuntkatti Raksha Manch (Khuntkatti Protection Committee) has been set up by the youth groups of Tubil Panchayat of Arki block in Ranchi district. Recently the committee stopped the work of road construction near Kander village as the contractor was using the inferior quality material for road construction. Moreover the labourers were brought in from outside by the contractor. The contractor in turn used his high hands to harass the committee members by calling upon police. The matter reached the Minister of the area and after realizing the fact the local police cooperated with the committee and the contractor was brought to book. The road work started again but with good material that is used under the supervision of the Manch members. Today the committee has expanded to include members from adjoining blocks of Murhu and Khunti blocks.

Rejuvenation of rights:

Forest resurvey was done in Jaranga and Arki panchayat in 1956 by the forest department. In March this year, the department officials again visited the forest and build up a concrete demarcation for the forest boundary in the villages of Serenghatu and Jaranga, not far from the Arki Block office. The people got suspicious of the motive of the forest department and called up an emergency meeting attended by Mundas of 35 villages. Tribal leaders were called in and AID facilitated the meeting. Leaflets on ‘rights of tribals over the forest’ were distributed. During the visit of officials of the forest department, people gheroaed them and asked the reason for the demarcation of the forest boundary. They also demanded the legal document which the officials were unable to present. Sensing fear, the officials took to retreat.
The Mundas in the region are upset at the interference of the forest department into the lands that are vested with them since ages. The special meeting held also took decision to accept any kind of legal notice if they receive from the forest department in this concern.
Such intervention of the forest department has set up a friction and tension in otherwise peaceloving tribes.

Khuntkatti Raksha Manch is uniting people to break the nexus between the forest department and timber mafias. It is found that timber mafias cause maximum disaster in terms of cutting of trees rather than the community.

An aggressive stand through massive dharna and protest at Blocks of Murhu, Arki and Khunt iin Ranchi district, taken by the members of the Manch and villagers of the region has resulted in halting, for time being, of any nefarious steps of the government to appoint an outsider as the secretary of the gram sabha and thus destabilise and weaken the existing self rule of the disempowered sections. 

Matter of serious concern

Khuntkatti Raksha Manch has stopped the election of office bearer of new gram sabha that was to be held by the block officials. Attempt is made to elect a secretary of newly constituted gram sabha who probably would be the lower level staff, called VLW (village level worker) of the Block.
The motive behind creation of a parallel gram sabha by the block is that the government has allotted a fund of Rs.50000 for each gram sabha of the panchayat for the development work, thus clearing the way for misappropriation of public money.
The Manch argue that there already exist a traditional gram sabha in the villages that is headed by a Munda, considered as the village head, a hereditary position held since ages. So electing a parallel head and a separate gram sabha will never be recognised by the villagers and will lead to resentment if any such schemes are passed for the area. The committee is confident that the government’s ‘divide and rule’ policy is never going to succeed in Khuntkatti region where self governance is practiced for long and is legitimised by the CNT Act.
The committee expresses its concern that the fund allotted for the rural schemes would be controlled by the VLW if he is made the secretary of the new and parallel gram sabha. There is great possibility of misappropriation of the fund that traditional gram sabha would be handicapped to check. The committee decided that only that person would be made secretary of the gram sabha whose name is in the voter’s list of the village. This argument gives logic and strength to their existing gram sabha.

A NGO working in the area was using outside contractor for implementing schemes of the government. The villagers convened a special gram sabha meeting to draw upon a strategy. The work was stopped. It was further decided that any schemes of the government would be carried in the area only with the consent of gram sabha and using local people for labour work as well as contractor. A resolution was also passed that all the work sanctioned under national rural employment guarantee programme (NREGP) would be done through gram sabha and the self help groups of the area.

A pond construction was sanctioned for the village of Jeranga by the District Administration and the contract for construction was taken by the community.  The forest department objected on the grounds that the land belonged to their department and filed a case against the contractors. The case was decided in favour of the people. The ruling stated that the Forest Department did not have claim over the entire land. This was decided on the basis of Khatian Part II the land record of Mundas.

Women not far behind

Maskal women committee of Birbanki panchayat was formed in 2004. Recently government floated a tender to construct 2.5 kms of road from Birbanki to Chuklu village. The SHG resisted an attempt of an outsider to take contract for the road construction work. The gram sabha of Birbanki approved the SHG to take up the tender for the construction work. However the local middle men in concurrence with the outside contractor exerted pressure to the local people to give away the demand from SHG to take up the contract. The women SHG went to the office of the REO, Ranchi and also expressed their grievances to the local MP of the area. At present the road construction work has been stopped by the villagers till the work is allotted to the women SHG of the village.